Les Liaisons Serpentines
by The Tonio
Summary: Draco is in New York, stuck in therapy and bored with life until his scheming half-sister offers him a challenge he can't refuse. This time, it's more than his reputation at stake...it's his heart! Most likely DG and DHr, but anything's possible! Chapte
1. Chapter One: I Hate New York

**Disclaimer**: I, The Tonio, do not own Harry Potter; nor do I make any money from these writings. Readers are warned that this fic will most likely feature the seduction of many HP favorite females (Hermione, Ginny, etc.) at the hands of Draco Malfoy. Incestuous and/or other unsavory undertones may also be present, but strictly at an 'R' level. Disclaimer applies to subsequent chapters. 

**Les Liaisons Serpentines**

**by**** The Tonio**

**Chapter One:  _I Hate _****_New York_**_ in the Springtime_****

When Draco Malfoy made his way down the street, everyone parted to let him pass.  This was one of the finer sections of the Upper East side, and wealthy Muggles, with their furs and tiny leashed dogs, were at least bright enough to know an important person when he approached.  Dressed in a doe-soft leather coat, the steel of his eyes hidden behind blue-tinted shades, Draco didn't bother to say 'excuse me' as they shifted back and forth to let him pass.  There was no need for pleasantries. 

He was in a hurry.  Pounding up the steps of a brownstone building, he thrust through the double doors of Dr. Marty McNaughton's office and marched across the reception area.  The secretary, a witch in a revealing Chloe number,  half-rose to greet him, but he moved along impatiently, silencing her with a wave of his gloved hand.  

Marty appeared to be dozing at his desk; a half-drunk cup of espresso sat before him, and he was tilted back in his chair with his eyes closed, a blissful look on his rather round face.  

"Marty!" Draco said, just loud enough to cause the other man to bolt from sleep, sputtering slightly as he did so.  

"Draco Malfoy?" Marty said, looking slightly alarmed.  Draco was giving him what was most likely a penetrating glare from behind his shades, and Marty began to bustle somewhat nervously with the paperwork scattered across his desk.  "I thought you weren't scheduled to see me until next Tuesday," he said carefully, still stacking documents.  

"I had an emergency," Draco said, tearing free his shades and tossing them on a coffeetable.  Next he removed his coat, this time folding it neatly and laying it over the arm of Marty's leather sofa.  

"Hmmm, yes, yes…that may be true, but I thought we covered the whole 'dropping in unannounced' issue during your last session?"  Marty's voice was low and genile, almost fatherly, but his face reddened as he spoke, a faint scrim of sweat gathering on his forehead.  

"This is true."  Malfoy arranged himself on the sofa as he spoke, still wearing his fur-lined leather gloves.  "But as my shrink, you're receiving a healthy sum of galleons from my Father's pockets.  And I'm sure you'd sacrifice your nap for me if I was in a state of genuine panic, wouldn't you?"  He leaned forward, sharing a knowing glance with the doctor.  "I'm talking near-nervous breakdown here, Marty."

Marty sighed and ceased fiddling with his paperwork.  "Very well, Draco.  What's bothering you this time?" 

"_Everything_," Draco exclaimed, waving his arms dramatically.  "The new school is incredibly tacky, the Slytherins are _weak_, Father's stuck back in England, and my half-sister is a genuine pain in the arse."

"So you're basically having the same problems, I gather."  Marty sniffed dryly. He had been Draco's therapist for roughly a month, and while having a therapist hadn't been Draco's idea, he rather enjoyed taking up Marty's precious free time.  He guessed that his mother had signed him up for sessions as a way of escaping his long, rambling complaints at the breakfast table; she claimed they gave her migraines.   

"Yes, the exact same problems.  Plus I _hate _New York in the springtime.  That song is bollocks."

Marty cleared his throat as subtly as possible.  "The song is about Paris, Draco…plus it's not currently springtime, it's fall."

"Autumn, you mean.  But about those problems--can't you do something to get rid of them?"  Draco flopped back on the sofa, stretching his legs out so his feet were resting on the wide leather arm.  

Marty sighed again, though wisely refrained from doing so audibly.  "I've already told you that I'm not here to _rid_ you of your problems, Draco.  I'm here to help you learn to manage them better, that's all."

Draco snorted.  "I've learned rubbish about managing from you.  A better doctor would be more hands-on."

"I'm the only wizard who practices psychology in the city, Draco.  Perhaps a Muggle psychologist would—"

"No!  Forget that!"  Draco protested, making a face that suggested he might soon be ill.     Draco made his hands into fists and held them at his sides almost woodenly; noticing this, Marty saw that he was still wearing his expensive gloves.  

"Didn't we talk about learning to remove your gloves, Draco?"

Draco was silent for a moment, then said in a small, biting voice: "I don't want to remove them."  

"Now, now, Draco.  The Muggle world is not _that _filthy.  I promise you that going gloveless will not put you in danger of catching any mysterious illness…"

"It's not that," Draco shot, twisting his hands together now, managing to make the gesture elegant.  "It's just so dirty out there.  And I prefer to stay clean, if you don't mind."  

"Very well," Marty said, willing to let the subject drop for the time being.  The Malfoys were, after all, paying him a fortune.  "How are you getting on with your sister?"

"_Half_ sister," Draco corrected.  "The same.  The little brat has taken to brown-nosing Mum something wicked.  I'd almost admire her technique if it weren't, you know, _my _Mother."

"How have things changed now that school has started?"

Draco shrugged.  "They haven't.  Except it's easier to avoid her in a crowd of Slytherins, thankfully.  But she's already got built-in notoriety here, whereas I have the misfortune of more or less starting from scratch.  My reputation preceded me back at the old Hogwarts, if you recall."

"Yes, yes, you've told me as much."  

Draco rolled over on his side, his attractive face no longer pinched and angry, but relaxed…almost wistful.  "Of course, there are plenty of other old Hogwarts students around who remember my reputation _very well…the great Harry Potter and his band of trollish followers, for instance."_

"Perhaps if you weren't so isolated, if you interacted with your old classmates a bit more, you'd find yourself more comfortable at school…?"  Marty knew very well that Draco Malfoy felt no lost love over The-Boy-Who-Lived, but it was his secret hope that the two boys would somehow become friends—mostly because Marty was very keen to meet the Potter boy.  What an honor it was to have such a hero living right here in Manhattan!

Draco was quiet for several minutes, long enough for Marty to fear that he was working himself up to a tantrum.  The last time he'd thrown a tantrum, Draco had put his foot through one of Marty's most valuable Renaissance paintings.  Lucuis Malfoy had paid for the damage, of course, but Marty found that he didn't much care to re-live the ordeal.

"You know…" Draco's words came out slowly, and Marty held his breath, anticipating the worst.  "That's not a bad idea, Marty.  Not a bad idea at all."

Marty exhaled. "Really then?" he said, his voice so bright and hopeful that it was painful to his ears.

"Yes, yes…not a bad idea at all.  I haven't given old Potty trouble since we moved 'cross the pond.  He's been asking for it too…walking around with his new battle scars, lapping up everyone's concern and attention.  He's just _begging for trouble from the likes of me!"_

"Oh, well…I wasn't exactly suggesting that you _trouble the Potter boy…"_

"You're a genius, Marty!"  Draco bounced upright, his eyes a-glow.  "I'll tell Father to slip a bonus into you next check…consider it personal thanks from me to you."

"Oh…" Marty wilted in his seat a little.  He thought of the little jaguar coup he'd been aching to buy.  "Well, that's awfully kind of you, Draco.  I'm glad to be of service."

"See you next Tuesday, then!" Draco pulled on his coat and retrieved his shades from the coffee table, looking quite refreshed and ready to face the world.  Marty stood at the window and watched him exit the building and make his way down the street, his white-blond head bobbing vividly amongst the other pedestrians.  It wasn't until he rounded the corner that the doctor finally relaxed, breathing deep.  

***

Coming to American hadn't been _his idea, it had been his Mother's.  When the war started in the winter of Draco's sixth year, it had been a quiet, political war that existed inside the Ministry.  Officials were divided over how to handle You-Know-Who's resurgence of power: negotiate or take a firm stand?  His father had been in the 'let's negotiate' camp, naturally, and the bitter stand-still within the Ministry lasted just long enough for the Dark Lord's minions to attack the Hogwarts castle.  Since almost all the students had been away on Christmas Holidays there had been no casualities, but Harry Potter had been gravely wounded during the attack, much to everyone's complete and utter panic.  The school itself was utterly destroyed, and the message was clear:  the safe haven of Hogwarts was a thing of the past.  _

Not that Draco had been concerned; he had merely sat back in preparation for a seventh year spent at Durmstrang, where he could finally practice some _real black arts.  But his plans to master necromancy had been rudely upset by his mother's sudden, firm decision to join the mass immigration to America.  England's wizarding government was falling apart, and while Lucius was staying to fight it out for the Death Eaters (under the cover of being a 'good guy', naturally), Narcissa feared for her son's safety.  When she learned that the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was being resurrected near New York City, she made her decision: Draco would go to America and finish out his seventh year at the new and improved version of Hogwarts. _

The resurrection of Hogwarts was something Draco had never expected; once the castle was destroyed, he figured everyone would give up and let it die a nice, quiet death.  No such luck.  It had all been Minerva McGonagall's fault.  Her second cousin was a teacher at a new wizardry school in the states, but the school—which had been built with the intention of being grand and prestigious—had run out of funding once the structure itself was completed.  Even for young witches and wizards, public school was the norm in America, and enrollment at the new private school had been low.  Too low to support staff wages and building upkeep.  So the new school had simply sat empty, quietly decaying until McGonagall swept in and saved it from the dustbin.  

The deal had been quite simple, or so Draco had heard.  With the help of Dumbledore, McGonagall promised her cousin and the rest of the board that they would have their funding and a full enrollment, provided they allow the new school to operate under the old Hogwart's education system.  Though Dumbledore lingered behind to pitch in with the war effort, he did his part to campaign hard for British wizards and witches to take refuge in the states until the war subsided, not wanting a repeat of the death-toll that had taken place during the Dark Lord's first reign.  Draco had found the whole hubbub quite amusing, picturing all his former schoolmates struggling to fit in at an American version of Hogwarts—or he had found it amusing until his mother had made the announcement that he would be struggling right along with them.  

Worse yet was discovering that he and his mother would be living with Auntie Freesia –Narcissa's older sister—and her fat, boorish husband, Theo.  True, they did have a penthouse on Fifth Avenue that overlooked Central Park, comfortably located in an all-wizarding section of Museum Mile.  But this did not make up for the fact that they were also the adoptive parents to Lamia, Draco's very own long-lost half sister.  And he would have preferred it if she had never been found.  

***

Draco's shoes clacked audibly against the polished parquet floors of the penthouse, announcing his arrival.  Laying his coat and sunglasses down on a table in the front hall, he was surprised by the maid, Marta, who swooped in silently and picked up his belongings, taking them to a hall closet.  Draco forced a hard smile at Marta; he would have preferred regular house-elves over a house-witch, but such creatures were a rarity in the states, it seemed.  Not to mention that it was apparently illegal to have unregistered creatures working in a household, in addition to being politically incorrect—whatever that meant.  

"Is that you, Draco?"  

It was Lamia, calling out from her suite of rooms beyond the parlor.  Draco glared at the parquet floors; next time he would have to remember to remove his shoes before entering.  

"Yours truly," Draco shot back.  He had hoped to spend a quiet Saturday alone with his mother, but it seemed that Lamia had decided not to stay at the dormitory this weekend after all.  Then again, why would she do that when her favorite plaything was right here?  

"Come to my room, please," she called, her tone managing to be both sweet and no-nonsense at once.  

Draco didn't answer, but his feet carried him in the direction of her suite; the penthouse was roomy, but he reasoned that it would be impossible to avoid her for the remainder of the afternoon.  Better to deal with her now rather than later.  

Inside the cloister of her suite, Lamia was laid out on her four-poster bed like Cleopatra, propped up on pillows and picking through a half-eaten box of imported bonbons.  Her frothy dressing robe matched her bed linens, silky and ice-blue, their color identical to that of her eyes.  Her hair was like Draco's, white-blonde and fine, but she had enchanted it to hang in a curtain of precious ringlets—Draco was fond of comparing her to a poodle because of this.  If she was hurt or angered by his insults, she didn't show it; like him, she had tempered, well-crafted emotions.

She smiled upon seeing him enter.  "Come sit with me" she said, patting a smooth patch of bedding.  

"Thanks but I'll stand," Draco drawled, smiling crookedly.  "And let's make this fast.  I have a meeting with my trainer at four."

Lamia giggled and shrugged her shoulders.  "Still wearing the gloves, are we?" She nodded at his hands, her ringlets bobbing in a taunting sort of way.  

Draco stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets.  "What's it to you?"  he asked.  "Marta gave me a manicure last night and I'm trying to preserve it, for your information."  In truth, Draco kept the gloves on almost all the time; without them, he felt less sure of himself, less _clean.  _The city was dirty, and in his lifetime he'd never seen so many Muggles in one place.

"I wanted to talk to you about school, actually," Lamia said, grinning in a calculated way that showed her very white, very even teeth.  

"That so?  We'll I'd rather not…which means you're out of luck."

"Oh, play nice."  She pouted, suddenly looking very much younger than her fifteen years.  Draco sighed inwardly, disgusted.  This was exactly why he had hoped to never lay eyes on Lamia again; it had been bad enough when he'd been five.  Back then, Lamia had still lived at Malfoy Manor, a screaming three year old who broke Draco's favorite model broomsticks and regularly shat on his bedroom rug.  She hadn't changed much since then.  

"No thanks."  Draco pretended to study his nails—this despite the fact he was still wearing his gloves.  "In addition to seeing my trainer, Father said he might floo me tonight, and I'd like to be in my room just in case he calls."

At this, Lamia stiffened, her face going visibly sour.  Draco smiled at this, quite gratified; he could always count on mention of Lucius to push Lamia's buttons.  He may have been her biological father, but Lucius had more or less abandoned her at the age of three and hadn't bothered to re-connect with her since then.  Lamia's birth itself would have been a scandal, had the Malfoy name not concealed the truth of the matter;  Narcissa informed the neighbors that baby Lamia was actually her sister Freesia's tyke, come to stay at Malfoy Manor while Freesia and Theo took a flying-carpet cruise around the world.  Narcissa had ordered that Lamia's natural mother—a receptionist for the school governors—be sent to the salt mines of Siberia, and Lucius, properly cowed by his wife's wrath, had obeyed without question.  Baby Lamia had been a different story; surprisingly taken by the infant, Narcissa had actually wanted to raise her as their own.  Lucius, wracked with guilt over his own infidelities, had humored her for a time, but eventually put his foot down; Lamia would have to go.  So off she went, off to live with Freesia and Theo, never to hear from the Malfoys again.  Or never until the war had started, anyway.    

"You're so mean to me," Lamia said, her voice strangled.  "I don't even know why I try to be nice to you."   

Draco rolled his eyes.  At this point, he knew it would be best to humor his half-sister.  Unfortunately, his mother still had a soft spot for Lamia, and if she was seen crying over Draco's harsh words he was likely to have his pocket money temporarily suspended.  "Right, right.  You wanted to talk about school then, did you?" he said, giving in.  

"Yes," she said, sniffling once.  "I wanted to ask how your first week of classes was?" 

"It was fine."  Draco chose his words carefully.  With Lamia, anything you said could be snatched up and used in a variety of ways against you, if you weren't careful.  But Draco was, for the most part, too crafty to get snared into any one of her many traps.  Such craftiness ran in the family, it seemed.  

"Oh," she said, managing to make the response sound thoughtful as she fingered through her box of sweets for a plump, chocolatey bonbon.  Once taking it into her pink mouth, she slowly licked smears of chocolate from each finger, savoring her own digits as if they were made of sugar.  Draco watched this display with some level of curiosity.  Lamia was fond of using her sexuality at as a tool of distraction, and if she hadn't been his bastard sister, Draco might have actually found her finger-foreplay to be quite…interesting.  As it was, he was merely impatient.  

Once finished with her tongue-bath, she continued: "I was just wondering, you see.  Because you looked so lonely this week.  I was worried about you."

"Lonely?"  Draco shifted, suddenly uncomfortable.  "I have no idea what you mean."  

She looked at him with big, luminous eyes.  "Well, when you first came here you bragged about what a big man on campus you'd been back in Merry Old England.  I guess I just expected you to have more friends…more respect....a better standing amongst your peers."

Draco tried not to wince, but he felt his lip twitch slightly; it was just enough to make Lamia smile, aware of how her words had cut him.  In truth, Draco _had been rather lonely during that long, first week of classes.  Most of his old Slytherin friends had been sent to Durmstrang, and the few who had immigrated to America weren't exactly members of the Malfoy fan club.  Draco was more or less left with only Pansy Parkingson for company, and even _she _seemed more interested in getting to know Lamia and her large flock of cohorts, all of them having been sorted into this new, America-flavored Slytherin house._

Draco shrugged as casually as he could manage.  "Things are different now," he said simply.  

"I'll say," Lamia said, smirking.  "And I have to ask…why didn't you tell me that Harry Potter was such a looker?  The newspaper pictures really don't do him justice…" she leaned back into her pillows dreamily, as if imaging that they were Potter's tender embrace.  At this, Draco thought he might be sick.  

"Enough," he spat, crossing his arms in front of his chest.  "Tell me what you're playing at right this second…else I'm going to leave this room and go back to pretending you don't exist—and I can be just as good at it as father, I assure you."

"Settle down."  Her eyes were laughing despite his cutting remark.  "I'm offering to help you, if you'll calm down enough to hear me out."

He glared at her suspiciously.  "Help me with what?" 

She threw her shoulders back proudly, straightening up.  "Help you gain back your glory…reclaim your rightful place as a Malfoy."

"I already _am _a Malfoy; you're the one who isn't."  This wasn't exactly true, of course, but he enjoyed reminded her of the fact that she had been denied the right to carry the Malfoy name.  Instead of being Lamia Louisa Malfoy, she had the unfortunate pleasure of being Lamia Louisa Plotte.

She went on unfazed, her eyes strangely alight.  "And yet I'm the one who's popular…who has all the friends and followers.  You must have had followers once, right Draco?"

"I guess," he said, thinking of Crabbe and Goyle.  

"I can make you the most powerful person at school," she said, raising her chin haughtily.  "Next to me, that is."  

"At what price?" He asked, snorting in contempt.  Privately, he was curious to hear more.  He couldn't deny that Lamia ran in powerful circles behind the school walls.  Despite being nowhere near a genius with a wand, she'd managed to secure a spot in the upper-level, competitive classes; in just her fifth year she was already a prefect, and even dyed-in-the-wool, Slytherine-hating Hufflepuffs had been seen treating her with awe and reverence.  

She stretched out on the bed, her exposed limbs long and lean, her dressing gown parting up far enough for Draco to almost glimpse what no brother should ever lay eyes upon.  But this was the sister he had never wanted, and he could appreciate her aesthetic beauty and appeal while still hating her thoroughly.  So he allowed his eyes to linger on her body, a cat-like smirk on his face as she caught him looking; frowning, she seemed secretly annoyed that he hadn't dissolved into love-sick trembles at the sight of her naked legs.  She covered herself at once, her demeanor suddenly stiff and prissy, and got right down to business.  "I need a favor," she said, her tone level and finally stripped of all pretense.

"Is that so?"  Draco leaned over and helped himself to a handful of her bonbons, tilting his head back and pouring them in all at once; the sweetness threatened to overwhelm his throat but he managed to smile through it.  "Tell me all about it…_sis."_

Lamia blanched at the word, a flash of anger threatening to mar her face.  "You know who Hermione Granger is, I presume?  Frizzy hair…good with a wand…hangs about with Harry Potter?"  

"Of course I know who she is," Draco said, then added, as an afterthought: "she's a mudblood, too." 

"I don't care about that," Lamia said, brushing him aside.  

Draco scoffed to himself; if there was one thing that separated Lamia from a _real_ Malfoy, it was her careless attitude towards Muggles and mudbloods.  American witches and wizards—even those of the purest blood who could chart their ancestors back to Salem—seemed to possess a more benign attitude toward non-magic folk, freely mixing in with them, wearing their clothes and listening to their music.  Even Draco had taken to Muggle clothing since moving to New York; since it was impossible to avoid the huge Muggle population, he found it essential to at least visually fit in.  

"Tell me," Lamia said, leaning forward as if he was her confidante.  "Is it true that Hermione Granger is Viktor Krumb's old girlfriend?" 

"I suppose so.  They went to Yule Ball together, back in fourth year."  Draco scratched his head, remembering the image of the stooped Qudditch player twirling 'round the ballroom with his bushy-haired dance partner.  Then again, Granger had actually cleaned up quite nicely for the ball—had worn decent robes and run a comb through her hair for once.  

Upon hearing Draco's confirmation, Lamia looked as if she'd been struck; her face turned a rather unholy shade of plum and her mouth hitched wordlessly.  "So it's true," she finally said.  "That sniveling bitch…"

Draco frowned.  "What's true?  What's this about?" 

Lamia breathed deeply for a few moments, calming herself.  "During the summer before last a number of World Cup Quidditch players were doing an exhibition tour around the states—it was very exciting for everyone…you know how bad the American Quidditch teams are, after all…"

Draco nodded.  Chalk that up to another thing he missed about England: decent sporting events.

"…Anyway, while touring New York the Quidditch expedition stayed for two weeks at the Cristal Palace Hotel.  I coaxed Mother and Father into taking me down for their open autograph session, where Viktor was the first player to sign my Bulgarian pennant.  When I handed the pennant over, our eyes locked and he blushed…"  Lamia was rapt as she spoke, clearly lost in some girly fantasy that was better suited to a diary.  Draco sighed to indicate his impatience, but she rambled on, her eyes misty.  "…During his stay he spent most of his free time with me.  We took long walks in the park and visited the _Metropolitan Museum of Magical Arts_, and it was clear by the time he left that he was entirely smitten with me.  He promised to write every day…"

"Let me guess," Draco interrupted.  "He never wrote you." 

Lamia's misty expression was fast replaced with a hard stare.  "Of course he wrote," she said, then added "but only a few times," her voice slightly wilted.  

"No surprise there," Draco said, smirking.  "But what's this got to do with Granger?" 

At mention of Hermione's name, Lamia looked mutely furious, her hands twisting viciously at her bedding.  "When the owl post came on Wednesday, she received a letter from Viktor.  The entire Gryffindor table was buzzing about it.  Oh, she tried to look precious and modest about it, but it was so _obvious _that she enjoyed the attention."

"Funny, I seem to recall her as hiding behind her pumpkin juice for the remainder of breakfast."

"All a charade," Lamia sniffed.  

"So you're upset because Viktor is writing to Granger and not you?  I don't see what the big deal is…it's obvious that Granger's moved on to the Weasley lug—I've seem them holding hands in the library."

"I don't care if she's moved on!" Lamia spat, slapping at the mattress daintily.  "My closest friends know how torn up I was over Viktor…and now they know that I was pushed aside for a dull and virginal brat with moppy hair!  They'll never look at me the same again!"

"Ohhh…I see.  This is about saving face then, is it?  Granger has inadvertently put your superiority in question, and you want to take her down a peg."

"Not exactly," Lamia said, smiling brightly.  "I'm more interested in ruining her, to be specific.  And you'll help out, won't you?"

Draco studied her carefully; somehow, he had to make sure that this deal unfolded in his favor, and not hers.  "You said you wanted me to do you this favor, and in return you'd help me reclaim my powerful position within the school, right?"

"That's right."

"Why should I put my reputation in the hands of one who can't even get an empty-headed Quidditch player to fall for her?" he asked, enjoying the way her face crumpled as he spoke.  "I mean, if you really want my _full commitment here, you need to sweeten the deal, so to speak."_

"Sweeten the deal?" She asked, licking her lips slowly and tipping forward, the neckline of her robe dividing enough to reveal the pale curve of her right breast, the whole thing looking as if it would slip out at any moment.  Draco stared at it blankly; there was something captivating about that moment just before nakedness—it was a delicious, slow suspension of time, usually ruined by the actual dénouement and removal of dress. 

"Keep that to yourself for now," he said, reaching down and drawing her robe shut, his finger listlessly tracing her collarbone as he did so.  "I'm interested in something a little more lasting." 

She laughed merrily.  "We can hardly get married, Draco.  Even the purest of purebloods discourage brother-sister unions."

"Dream on," he said, crossing his arms in front of his chest with confidence.  "The only way I'll do this for you is if you agree to stay in New York with Freesia and Theo over the Christmas Holidays."

Lamia chewed her bottom lip fretfully, thinking his offer over.  "But I was supposed to go to Malfoy Manor with your and your mother…I was going to see Fath—I mean, Lucius."

"Either you forgo you Christmas or I'm out," Draco said, standing his ground.  He knew how much Lamia wanted to see Malfoy Manor again, how much she was hoping for a chance to somehow win over their Father.  But Draco wanted none of it; he preferred things as they were now, and wanted to spend Christmas as he always had: quietly, and alone with Mother and Father.  

"And you'll help me ruin Hermione Granger, then?  No questions asked?" she implored, her voice tiny and hopeful.  

"Sure.  I won't do anything too illegal, mind you, but if you want her reputation destroyed then I'm your man."

She grinned openly.  "I do love that dastardly streak of yours.  It reminds me of my own."  

"You wish."  He laughed harshly, running a gloved hand through his hair.  "But I should warn you that you have your work cut out for you.  Hermione Granger has a sparkling reputation; she is the pet of every professor, the best friend of Harry-bloody-Potter, and is frightfully smart on top of all that.  In fourth year a journalist named Rita Skeeter tried to run a smear campaign against her and got nowhere: Granger didn't even seem fazed by it."

"Draco, Draco," Lamia said, shaking her head as if she were dealing with an ignorant child.  "I don't want you to smear Hermione's reputation.  It'll be much better, I think, if Hermione manages to destroy her good name all on her own."

Draco blinked.  "What do you mean?" 

Lamia smiled hungrily and hissed only a single word:  "_Corruption._"

# # # # # # # # # # #

Authors Note (please read as this applies to all subsequent chapters as well):

I was inspired to write this after reading _Les Liaisons Dangereuses, a novel by Choderlos de Laclos that has inspired many Hollywood movies that you might have seen.  The plot of this story is inspired by the novel, but I most certainly have my own special twists and turns in mind, as you'll later see!  _

This chapter was written by myself on an ancient royal typewriter, and then later lovingly keyed into a computer late last night.  

Please review if you like where this is headed.  Or even if you don't. J ;) :D

Edited to add:  People, when I say that _Les Liaisons Dangereuses _has inspired 'several hollywood movies', doesn't it occur to you that YES, I might mean _Cruel Intentions?  _Not to mention _Valmont and _Dangerous Liaisons.  _So PLEASE stop reviewing just to say "hey this reminds me of _Cruel Intentions_". ;)   _


	2. Chapter Two: Snakes in the Grass

**Les Liaisons Serpentines**

**by**** The Tonio**

**Chapter Two:  _Snakes in the Grass_**

****

Draco checked himself out in the bathroom mirror; thanks to his trainer he had finally developed some lean muscle in his shoulders and upper arms—all the better for when Quidditch practice started in two weeks.  He was going to beat Harry Potter to the snitch this season or die trying.  He ran his hands under the tap, dampening them—school had become the only place where he felt comfortable not wearing a pair of gloves—then used his fingers to casually dishevel his hair.  He stepped back and studied himself.  The new set of school robes he was wearing fit him well, and he was particularly pleased with how the green stripe in his tie made his eyes look somehow brighter.  Granger wouldn't know what hit her.  

"How you doing?" he asked his reflection, winking.  This was followed by a stifled laugh.  It had been Marcus Flint's favorite pick up line, but Draco liked to fancy himself a bit more subtle when it came to such things.  

Draco knew just where to find Granger, of course—tucked away in the furthest reaches of the library, most likely looking haggard and washed out in the pale light of the hanging lanterns.  He left the boys bathroom and made his way to the library, taking a wrong turn once along the way, still unsure as to the layout of his new school.  The building was located on a large, unplottable Island out near the Hamptons, and students traveled by ferry to and from the mainland.  Rather than a castle, this version of Hogwart's had been modeled after the Palace of Versailles, with winding, white marble hallways and much garish gold décor.  It might have been classy, had the whole place not had the aura of being one giant replica.  Malfoys were raised to collect Louis XIV originals, so Draco was none too impressed with the Palace…no matter how accurate of a reproduction it was.  

The Library was enormous, with shelves and shelves of books climbing nearly to the top of the high cathedral ceilings, charmed to absorb the echoes that would have surely resounded from any student movement below.  As such, Draco was able to quickly tip-toe into the back carrels where Hermione was situated between piles of books, chewing on the tip of her quill thoughtfully.  Draco smirked inwardly; Lamia had suggested he invite Hermione to take the ferry back to Manhattan for the weekend, where they could meander through museums and visit Little Diagon Alley, a rowdier version of the original that existed back in England (Draco was beginning to wonder if the American wizarding community had ever built _anything even remotely original).  Lamia, however, didn't know the personal history of loathing that existed between himself and Hermione Granger.  If he waltzed up and invited her out on a date just like that, she was likely to think him under _Imperius_ or something worse.  _

Screw Lamia, anyway.  Draco had a better idea of how to deal with Hermione Granger.  Running his fingers through his hair one more time for good measure, he walked out into the carrels, fashioning his expression into one of hassled distraction.  

"Let's see…" he murmured, eyes scanning the shelves not far from where Hermione was seated.  "_Actual Advanced Arithmancy…where can it be?"_

In his peripheral vision, he could see Hermione lift her head from the book she was hunched over.  "Did you say something, Malfoy?" she asked, her tone curt.  She seemed annoyed, as if she owned the library and he had barged in on her private space.  

"I wasn't talking to _you_, Granger…so don't worry your little bushy head."  Draco kept his eyes glued to the shelves, raising his hand to count them off for good measure. 

She watched for several seconds in silence before curiosity got the better of her.  "Are you looking for something from that shelf?  Because I pulled a few things from there earlier."  

"I'm looking for _Actual Advanced Arithmancy_, by Gulliver Grendel.  I was told it was shelved back here."  

"It is," Hermione said, lifting the large book she had been poring over.  "I have it right here."  

"Oh."  Draco turned and gave her a sort of half-smile.  "If you could put it back when you're finished, I'd like to look at it next."

"Certainly," Hermione said agreeably, though rather than returning to her book she continued to stare at him inquisitively, finally probing: "But what do _you want it for, Malfoy?  You're not even in Arithmancy this term."_

 "Can't a man check out some recreational reading?" he asked, working his face into an offended scowl.  "Just because I dropped Arithmancy doesn't mean I don't like to keep up with the latest theories in the field." 

"Of course you can check it out," she backpeddled furiously, her face strained.  "I just need twenty more minutes with this chapter."  

"That's fine.  I'll wait."  Draco pulled a random book from the shelf and plopped down in a cushy armchair, splaying his legs out before him.  Stiff and ancient, the pages of the book crackled when he opened it, causing him to grimace slightly.  _"New function Arithmancy has undergone a number of changes since its revolutionary stages of development in blah…blah…blah…"  He continued to move his lips as if reading silently to himself and looked over at Hermione through lowered lashes.  She had the looks of a commoner, he decided; plain, sturdy features with absolutely no hint of delicacy, and __so what if she had nice eyes when her unkept hair was enough to make anyone cringe?  It was hard to believe that __this was the girl who had won a World Cup Quidditch player's heart.  No wonder Lamia was humiliated._

After several long, staggering minutes of note taking, Hermione finally closed the Gulliver Grendel book and rose rather unsteadily, heaving it up into her arms.  

"Um…Draco?" she ventured, taking a few steps toward him. 

"Yes?"  Draco looked up from the book he was feigning great interest in.  

"I'm finished, if you still want this."  

Draco took the book from her outstretched hands.  "Grendel's theories on new function Arithmancy are really something else, aren't they?" he said, running his fingers over the book's cover with admiration.  

"I was just taking notes on that chapter."  Hermione looked startled; vaguely suspicious.  "How do you know about new function Arithmancy?  We just started covering that this term." 

"Sometimes Professor Vector and I like to have tea in his office and 'talk shop'," Draco said, the Americanism sounding strange and somehow pleasant on his tongue.  "I like to stay fresh on the subject."  

"Oh really?"  She seemed to struggle silently for a moment, then finally let her eyebrows raise up in interest.  "You really should sit in on our class someday…next week we're going to—"

She broke off, though, interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps.  Draco swiveled around to see who had broken up the party.  He was rather unsurprised to see that it was none other than Harry Potter.   

"Hermione?" Harry asked—his eyes blinking rather dimly, Draco thought.  "What are you still doing here?  I thought we were going to meet in the common room before dinner?"  His eyes skipped over to Draco, shadowed with caution.  

"Oh, I was just coming," she said, shying away from Draco and moving back to her carrel to gather up her books.  Harry waiting silently, shooting Draco apprehensive glances all the while.  It was rather irritating, but Draco supposed he should be glad that it was Harry who had bumped into them rather than Ron Weasley, who was much more likely to loudly voice his displeasure at witnessing the private interaction.  

Draco pretended to be engrossed in Gulliver Grendel's book as they left, looking up distractedly as Hermione said "erm, enjoy the book."

"I'll let you know what I think," Draco called to her retreating back, and was pleased at how she jumped slightly, thrown by the implication that they would be having a civil conversation at some point in the near future.  If Potter had a reaction to Draco's words, he didn't show it.

Once they were gone, Draco slammed the book shut and tossed it to the floor, unable to contain his cat-who-swallowed-a-canary smile.  She wasn't exactly throwing herself at him yet, but he was fairly certain that he had taken the first step towards breaking her heart.   

***

"No offense, Marty, but I hate it here."  Draco stared at the tiled ceiled of his therapist's office, his gloved hands folded across his torso.  

"It was your idea to see me on Tuesdays, Draco…though why it is you want to take the ferry out from school in the middle of the week is a mystery to me…"  Marty's voice was weary and distracted, and Draco thought to himself—certainly not for the first time—that the doctor seemed far too unenthusiastic for what he was being paid.  That was the trouble with Americans—they hadn't grown up scraping and bowing to Malfoys, and were too set in their superior ways to start doing so now.  

"I didn't mean I hate it _here_ in your office; I meant that I hate being here in the city, living with Auntie Freesia and Uncle Theo instead of being back at Malfoy Manor where I belong."  

"You'll be back there soon enough," Marty said, his voice sounding almost robotically programmed.  "It's dangerous over there now, anyway."  

"It's just as dangerous here," Draco said, thinking of Lamia.  Last night she had crept into his dormitory room and slithered into his bed, laying across his chest until he had sputtered awake.  When he opened his eyes she had been grinning down at him, her fist propped under her chin.  Almost at one she demanded news of his progress with Hermione.

_Please tell me you've already fucked her,_ she said, eyes narrowing to slits.  Draco yawned and stretched beneath her, giving her a light push so that she rolled off of him, still managing to flop gracefully at his side.  

_We're talking about Hermione Granger here_, he said, reaching out to ruffle her hair as if she were a six-year old.  _She's as sexually repressed as the day is long._

_Exactly_, Lamia whispered, crawling on top of him again so that they were lying with their chests pressed together, their chins almost touching.  _She's about to pop a cork with that tight ass of hers.  One come-hither glance from you and she should come undone.  _

_I'm glad you have such faith in my abilities_, Draco remarked.  _And I can see why you're so jealous of her—aside from winning over Krum, her rack is a great deal more impressive than the one you're currently grinding against me_.  With that, he lifted her up by her gyrating shoulders, rolling her body off his own once more.  

She pouted at his side, her hair loose and fine around her shoulders and almost as white as the nightgown she wore.  Wearing white pyjamas himself, Draco had been startled by their mirror image…un-nerved at how she could curl his lip almost precisely in the manner that had taken him years to perfect.  

"Dangerous?  What sort of danger?" Marty asked, interrupting his thoughts.  

"Well, I'm referring to my half-sister, specifically."  

Marty seemed to stifle a sigh.  "Draco, I've been quite understanding about your various neuroses so far…the glove-wearing, for instance…but I have to say that your paranoia regarding your sister seems un-justifiable.  Perhaps you are merely jealous of her?" 

"What are you _talking _about?" Draco said, rolling over onto his side to better shoot daggers at the good doctor.  "I'm the least jealous person I know."

"Of course."  Marty shifted in his chair, his face carefully neutral.  "And what was it you were saying last time?  About wanting to start up a feud with Harry Potter?"

"Oh, him," Draco sniffed, returning his gaze to the ceiling.  "Let's just say I'm focusing on someone else for the time being…the Head Girl, specifically.  She's a mudblood, if you can believe it."

"So you have a romantic interest in the Head Girl?" Marty asked, ignoring the mudblood comment.  

"_What?  _God no.  Lamia and I struck a deal—if I manage to turn Granger into a sexual deviant by the end of term, she'll give up her Christmas with us at the Manor."

Marty cleared his throat, speaking clearly and slowly.  "You know, Draco, I have to say that I don't think this sort of interaction is the best way for you to form a lasting bond with your sister." 

_Tell me about it_, Draco thought dimly, feeling quite ill as the image of last night floated back to him.  Looking at his sleepy-eyed half sister beside him, she had seemed weirdly like a _part of him.  For the very first time, he found he couldn't deny their strange and un-namable bond, which was stronger than that of normal siblings—something dangerous and twisted.  He had leaned forward and kissed her, his lips parting slightly against hers, longing to discover if her mouth tasted like his own—just as her hair seemed to smell of him and of their father, of all things rich and nobel.  But he had managed to keep the kiss chaste, or just barely.  He nipped her bottom lip with his teeth and feel back on the pillows, closing his eyes to feign exhaustion…even as Lamia laughed knowingly beside him._

***

The next morning at breakfast, Draco sat morosely on the fringes of his Slytherin classmates, all of whom had their eyes on Lamia, who was reading news of the war aloud from the _Salem World Herald._

"The _Daily Prophet _reports that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has been invited into the Ministry compound to negotiate a peace treaty that would end the recent acts of terrorism that have been carried out in He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's name.  Readers will recall that these acts of terrorism began with an attack on the Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry last winter, a siege that left Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, gravely injured.  Minion's of You-Know-Who had been attempting to assassinate the young hero, but had not counted on Potter's skill at defending himself.  Harry Potter is now finishing up his schooling in American at the New Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry…"

Draco rolled his eyes.  Trust the media to turn important, war-related news into a entertainment piece about Harry Potter.  Draco's gaze meandered over to the Gryffindor table, where Potter and Ron Weasley were engaged in deep discussion, Hermione Granger oddly absent from their side.  Last winter's attack on Hogwarts had left Potter with a second scar, a jagged line that ran from his lower lip to his chin, and even more notoriety.  Which was stupid, Draco thought.  The bloke had almost died—what was so heroic about that?  

Draco's rather comforting thoughts were cut off by a brisk tap on the shoulder.  Looking up, he was nearly bowled over to see Hermione Granger standing over him, a fistful of parchments in hand.  

"Hello," she said, looking as if she were struggling to maintain some kind of Head Girl composure, even as a number of the Slytherins were pulling their eyes away from Lamia and craning to get a look at what was unfolding down at the No-Man's-Land end of the table.  

"Hi," Draco said, dropping his spoon into his cereal.  

"I thought you might want these," she said, thrusting the parchments toward him.  "They're copies of Professor Vector's lecture notes on new function Arithmancy."  

"Thanks," Draco said, carefully taking the parchment from her grasp.  Thinking fast, he allowed the tip of his finger to graze her wrist as he did so, pleased when her face twitched in surprise.  There it was…the subtlety and nuance of a well-done seduction—something that had nothing to do with words or Arithmancy and everything to do with body language.  "This was very thoughtful of you," he added, smiling.  

"It was nothing," she mumbled, her face going red.  She bustled away in a hurry, returning to the curious and somewhat angry Weasley and Potter, who at once bombarded her with questions that Draco couldn't overhear. 

"Nicely done."  Lamia had left her friends and sat down across from him, the folded up _Salem World Herald still in her hands.  "Pansy assured me that you had been quite the Casanova back in England…looks like she was telling the truth."_

"Of course," Draco said, pocketing the Arithmancy notes.  

"What did she give you, anyway?  A love letter?"  Lamia looked hopeful, also entirely innocent with her face scrubbed free of makeup, her hair neatly tied back in a long plait and her prefect's badge gleaming.  

"Arithmancy notes."

Lamia looked dumbfounded for a second or two, then a small, knowing smile surfaced.  "Very good.  Catch a bookworm with books…I should have thought of it myself."

"If you were a real Malfoy it would have been the first thought to enter you mind," Draco said loftily, stirring at his cereal.  A tiny crease appeared between Lamia's brows as her eyes narrowed.

"I wouldn't have such a big idea of myself if I were you," she warned darkly.  "Hermione Granger is _hardly _a challenge—anyone who's anyone knows that her red-headed boyfriend would rather die that _spoil__ her before marriage.  She has to be more sexually frustrated than a eunich trapped in a room full of naked Veelas."_

Draco wrinkled his face in disgust.  "Enough with talk of eunichs, if you don't mind.  But carry on with the topic of naked Veelas, if you like—I'm quite fond of them."

"My point is that you have an easy job ahead of you," Lamia said, leaning forward and plucking a cocoa puff from Draco's cereal bowl.  

"Not really."  Draco frowned.  "Granger has a long history of hating me—she even slapped me back in our third year together."

"Really?"  Lamia raised her eyebrows in interest.  "What for?"

"Who knows…I probably called her a mudblood to her face or something."

Lamia laughed in delight at this, taking several minutes to collect herself.  "Oh Draco," she breathed.  "That public mudblood-hating will get you _nowhere.  Even your mother agrees with me on this."_

"But it's so fun."  Draco grinned.  It was true, as well.  He often found himself hoping that his Father's goal of assisting the Dark Lord in the banishment of mudbloods failed, in fact; life would be fairly boring for Draco if he didn't have handfuls of people he could feel superior to.  

"Still," Lamia insisted, her laughter subsiding.  "A real challege would be someone like…" she paused, scanning the room, "…oh, her."  She pointed at the Gryffindor table.  Following her finger, Draco saw that she was referring to a tall, red-haired girl who played chaser for the house Quidditch team.  It was Weasley's quiet younger sister, Ginny.  

"Her!" Draco snorted.  "What would make her so hard to seduce?"  

Lamia smirked in a triumphant sort of way.  "I overheard her telling her friends that she plans to enroll in the Amazonian Order of Aurors when she finishes at Hogwarts."

"Oh really?"  Draco sat up straighter, impressed with Lamia's ability to hunt down details on seemingly everyone in the school.  The Amazonian Order of Aurors was an intense, highly-selective group of female Aurors that operated independently throughout Europe.  Amazonian Aurors were known for being strong, deadly, and decidedly same-sex oriented.  "So you think Weasley's little sister has Sapphic leanings, do you?" Draco asked, craning his neck to get a better look at the red-head.  

"She might," Lamia said, shrugging.  "But moreover, she seems calm, happy, and friendly—not a tightly wound ball of nerves, like Granger.  Getting a good lay is the last thing from her mind, I imagine."  

"Getting a good shag from Draco Malfoy is _never far from any girl's mind," he corrected, smiling self-assuredly.  _

"Put your money where your mouth is then, _brother."  Lamia's voice lowered to a whisper as she delivered the final word.  As far as their classmates knew, Draco and Lamia were merely first cousins.  _

"Another deal?  What is it this time?  And what sort of vendetta do you have against Ginny Weasley, anyway?"

Lamia shook her head.  "No vendetta.  This is just for fun." 

Draco folded his napkin, his face carefully neutral despite the fact that small warning bells were sounding deep inside his murky conscience.   "All right.  What did you have in mind?"  

"I bet you can't score with Ginny Weasley," Lamia said, leaning forward in confidence.  "And if you can't, I get to visit Malfoy Manor for the _entire summer." _

Draco smirked; Lamia already foresaw his eventual conquest of Hermione Granger, it seemed, and was trying to re-capture a chance to luxuriate on the Manor grounds during the sunniest months of the year.   "Very well," he said slowly.  "But if I _do_ score, you have to start staying at school during the weekends.  I want Saturdays with Mother to myself for once."

Lamia looked slightly pained at the prospect—she was very fond of Narcissa, after all—but finally nodded her head in agreement, outstretching her hand so they could shake on the deal.  

"Always a pleasure to play with you," she said, smiling rather wickedly before scurrying away.  Draco slumped back into his chair and wondered what he had gotten himself into. 

***

Draco's main problem was that he had no idea how to approach a seduction with Ginny Weasley; he knew nothing about her other than the fact that she was a decent Quidditch player and a prefect, like Lamia.  Despite Lamia's implications that Ginny was a latent lesbian, Draco had seen her hanging around Neville Longbottom quite a little bit and wondered if the two hadn't dated off and on over the past few years.  That was a good sign, maybe: any girl desperate enough to date Longbottom was definitely overdue a thorough, kinky fuck.  

And speaking of kinky…Draco watched from the stacks as Hermione Granger read a book at her usual carrel, her feet propped up on the table in a blatent disregard for rules, her quill clamped between her teeth.  Studying the way Hermione worked the quill between her lips, Draco wondered if she didn't have a bit of an undernourished oral fixation.  If so, he'd be happy to fix that soon enough.  

That was the shocking part, really—the discovery that he was actually looking forward to making Granger pant for him.  He couldn't imagine a better position of power and triumph, relishing the thought of bringing the Head Girl to her knees—in more ways than one.  

It made him more than a touch nervous, though, to be pursuing both Granger and Ginny Weasley at the same time.  If Ron Weasley discovered that he was making the moves on both his sister and his girlfriend, Draco was most definitely a dead man.  Dead and possibly castrated.  

Ignoring such horrific thoughts, Draco moved casually out from the stacks and over to the carrels, paying note of the way Hermione's eyes involuntarily brightened at his approach.  

"What do you want?" she asked, trying to sound defiant.  

"Just to return these," Draco said, holding out the parchments she had passed to him that morning.  "I made a copy of them, you see."

"Oh."  Her posture seemed to wilt a little.  "That _was a copy, actually.  I made those for you to keep."  _

"Really?"  Draco's tone was one of muted delight.  "That was really nice of you…especially considering, well…"

"That I hate you?"  she supplied helpfully.

"Yeah," he finished, smiling.  "Exactly." 

"I can put my feelings aside for academic purposes," she said, shrugging lightly, her quill still caught in her mouth.  

"Of course."  Draco reached out and, very gently, pulled the quill away from her lips.  "You're going to ruin that thing, you know." 

She laughed nervously.  "I go though a few of these a week.  Ron hates it."  

"Who wouldn't?" Draco retorted, snarling a bit at the mention of her boyfriend.  Sensing his sudden tension, she placed her quill on the table and began to twiddle her thumbs together instead.  Draco was beginning to see what Lamia meant about Granger being wound too tight.

"Listen, Granger," he began, his tone no-nonsense.  "If you intend to become a powerful, well-studied witch, you need to pull yourself together a bit more.  You're jumpy as a mouse…your clothes are wrinkled and unkempt…you chew through your quills and bite your nails down to the quick.  It's all rather disgusting." 

"It is?" she asked, her mouth dropping open.  A look of deep offense touched her features, but she seemed to shrug it away.  "I mean, it _is_," she said, nodding her head in weary agreement.  

He patted her shoulder in a comforting sort of way, but his voice remained strict.  "Tomorrow you will use a spell to press your uniform.  You will refrain from chewing on quills and sit properly, like a lady."  He swatted her on the knee and she dropped her feet to the floor at once, crossing them neatly at the ankle.  

"Okay," she said, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and awe.  A bossy one herself, she wasn't used to taking orders, he knew.  But perhaps she just hadn't been given the right _kind _of orders all these years.  She was a slave to following her professors, after all—if he could tap into that behavior he would have her wrapped around his little finger soon enough.

"Good girl," he said, fingering her cheek.  She glowed faintly in appreciation, lapping up the praise like a starved creature.  

"Do you…" she began, then trailed off, looking unsure of herself. 

"Please ask me anything you like," he said, thrilled to note that she seemed to brighten further at receiving the gift of his permission.  

"Do you still hate me?  I always thought you did."  She cringed at the sound of her own words, a high blush fanning out over her cheekbones.  

"I'll probably always hate you for who you are," he said, still running a finger along her jawline, the word _mudblood__ hanging silently between them.  "But I could be made fond of you in some ways…if you manage to do as you're told."_

She pulled away as if stung.  "I don't know why I'm talking to you," she said, her voice going cold.  "You're _horrid.  Like a maggot."  Flustered, she gathered up her things and hurried away, looking as if she might burst into tears.  _

But the next morning she entered the Great Hall wearing pressed and starched robes, her hair tied back neatly for once, and sat down between her friends with a great deal more composure than usual.  Her neck extended almost elegantly as she sought out Draco's gaze, her eyes catching his and silently begging for approval.  

# # # # # # # # # # # #

A/N:

I won't usually update this fast, but you can probably expect new chapters ever week or so.  I would hate to keep you, my faithful readers, waiting and unfulfilled! ;) 

Thank you very much to everyone who has already reviewed; I would like to know who all my readers are, so be sure to post your thoughts—if to say nothing more than "hi" and introduce yourself.  

Visit my livejournal for updates! 


	3. Chapter Three: Casting a Wide Net

**Les Liaisons Serpentines**

**By The Tonio**

**Chapter Three:  _Casting a Wide Net_**

****

In the next few weeks Draco and Hermione began meeting secretly in the library, back in her area of quiet, private carrels.  At first she acted very irritated by his regular drop-ins, huffing in an exaggerated manner as he plopped his books down in the carrel adjacent hers, drawing his outer robes off and tossing them over a chair as if staking his claim.

"Can't you find your own corner of the library to study in?" she complained, flicking a quill against her thigh in aggravation.  

"No one's stopping you from moving elsewhere," Draco remarked, his eyelids held at half-mast in a gesture of boredom.  "And the scenery here is quite nice," he added, opening his eyes wide enough to make a pointed show of lighting his gaze upon her legs, which were exposed in the gap of her robes.  

She made a dim noise of disgust and tucked her legs under the table.  

"One of your stockings is pulled up higher than the other," Draco said helpfully, then cracked a tiny half-grin when she automatically reached down to haul up the traitorous knee-sock, then slapped her own leg in annoyance at having done so.  Draco stared at her openly as she pretended to go back to reading, her teeth working at her bottom lip anxiously.  She was clearly dying to have a private gnaw on her quill, but instead twisted it in her hand until it threatened to snap in half.  

"Would you quit staring already!" she barked, forgetting for a moment that they were in the secluded hush zone of the library stacks.  

"I was just thinking…" Draco began, ignoring her muted rage.  "While you do look better with your hair tied back like that—much neater, to say the least—your forehead is really too high to pull off such a look." 

"What do you mean?"  Hermione's hand fluttered up to her head, and a brief flash of distress crossed her features, as if she had toiled very hard indeed to get her hair just right.  

"Well."  Draco took this opportunity to slide his chair closer, until they were sitting side by side.  Without asking permission he reached up tugged a few strands of hair loose, feeling her flinch but not completely pull away.  He twisted the hair around his fingers until she had two or three wispy tendrils framing her face.  "Something a little less severe," he muttered, his tone impassive.  

"I had no idea that the Malfoy's fancied themselves hair-dressers," Hermione said darkly, though she reached up to touch the coils of hair gingerly, as if unable to contain her curiosity.  

"You're not at all _bad_ looking."  Draco offered this as if it were a most precious gift.  And it was, really; beneath the table he was wiping his hand off on the knee of his trousers.

Hermione laughed gruffly, the sound almost a snort.  "Beauty experts too, are they?  Pageant judges, perhaps?"  

Draco smirked.  "I gather you're not used to compliments."

"That was your idea of a compliment?"

"Snatch them up while they're hot," Draco said, shrugging.  In response, Hermione managed to look both appalled and faintly flattered.  He was, after all, the one who had publicly mocked her teeth not too many years ago, as well as being the first person to have ever called her _mudblood to her face.  Draco supposed he ought to be sorry for that, but found that he couldn't really manage it.  She _was_ a mudblood, after all.  There really wasn't any way to escape that particular fact.  _

"I'm far too busy to worry about hair or compliments, anyway," Hermione said, flipping through the pages of the book set out before her.  "I'll gladly leave that domain to you."

"Surely that over-grown, freckled sweetheart of yours lays on a compliment now and then," Draco said, reaching over and shutting the book, just missing her fingers.

"Yes," Hermione said stiffly, finally turning towards him, her face taut and even more pale than usual.  "Just yesterday Ron gave me one.  He said _I love how you never complain about the way my feet smell, Herm_.  How's that for an ego boost?"

Draco let out a hard laugh.  "I imagine Weasley spent weeks pumping himself up to reveal _that little heart-felt gem."  _

"Don't laugh," Hermione said, frowning.  "We're just…comfortable around each other.  Flowery declarations are for insecure fourth-years."

"Perhaps."  He leaned in closer, his nose nearly brushing her ear, quite enjoying the way she squirmed at his close proximity.  "But you sound more like friends than lovers," he breathed, voice nearly a whisper.

"Well _of course_ we're not lovers.  Good grief!"  she burst out, cheeks tinged scarlet.  

"I can't imagine why not," Draco said, falling back against his chair, lips puffed out in disappointment.  "You're young and in love…a good shagging's in order."

Hermione sighed, her face a struggle of awkward emotions.  "It's not as easy as all that," she said, her voice smaller than usual.  

Draco leaned forward at once, almost surprised at the degree of his own enthusiasm—which was not feigned at this point but genuine.  This was the opening he had been waiting for, and though she was pinch-lipped and flushed with discomfort, he knew that a part of her was waiting for him to push further.  Working her was like peeling a stubborn fruit; if he could dig through the bitter rind there was bound to be a juicy reward laying in wait.  

"Tell me about it," he said, touching her wrist with the tip of his fingernails.  

***

Funnily enough, Draco had Marty to thank for his triumph over Hermione—or his soon-to-be-triumph, which was how he thought of it.  Narcissa had sent Draco to Marty not long after their move to America; during those first few weeks Draco had been despondent and spent all hours locked in his room, wishing himself back at Malfoy Manor.  When in his mother's company, he griped bitterly about the filthiness of New York City, about the over-abundance of muggles, about the unpleasant, greasy quality of the food.  Finally, his mother had had enough.  Usually so cool and restrained, she whipped out her wand during Sunday brunch and took aim.  "Confuto!" she cried, and Draco had felt his mouth seal shut, his lips quite literally zipped up so that he could no longer utter a word.  "Mummy has a headache, darling," she murmured, rubbing at her temple.  He'd been shipped out to Marty's office that following Tuesday.  

Draco had refused to speak at first; no low-down wizard who dabbled in a pointless, mugglescience was going to get the best of him.  But Marty was good, he knew just which buttons to prod.  One question about Lamia, or how he was enjoying America, or how he felt about being separated from his father, or, well…Draco had found it hard to stay silent for very long.  Once he had permission to speak his mind, it felt incredibly liberating to do so.    

Through Marty Draco had learned the value of having a friendly ear to bend; all he had done was offer Hermione his own ear and she had snatched up the chance, soon unloading all her painfully dull problems on his doorstep, from the burdens of being Head Girl to her remarkably dispassionate romance with the red-headed Weasel.  "I don't know why I'm telling _you all this," she often said, looking him over with narrowed eyes.  But Draco knew why; because it was easier to vent all you poison out on a stranger—or even an enemy—than a loved one.  _

The added bonus that Draco hadn't counted on was Hermione's one spot of vulnerability: her eagerness to please, especially to please those who held thorough disdain for her.  That was why she had spent the last six or so years bouncing up and down in her seat, waving her hand wildly, shouting out answers before being called on—making an especially desperate show for professors and students alike.  Though she herself was rather stoic, her actions often betrayed her one hidden want: _Like me!  I'm worthy of being here!  You can trust me, you can!_

In those sidelong glances she made toward him when she thought him unaware, Draco read her intentions loud and clear:  She wanted to win him over.  She despised him, true, but that didn't mean that she didn't want to gain the approval of the boy who'd always called her a dirty mudblood.  Draco Malfoy's approval did not come easy; anyone would see his nod of acceptance as a rare and great coup.  

Anyone except perhaps Lamia.  In his second week of making progress on Hermione she caught him alone in an east wing corridor, making his way towards in the kitchens in hopes of nicking a snack from one of the house elves.  

"You there!" she ordered, hands on her hips in an authoritative way.  "Halt or it'll be a thousand points from Slytherin."

He raised an eyebrow in response.  "And here I thought you _liked being popular."_

She ignored him and swooped forward, clutching at his hand and bringing it up to her nose.  "_Please tell me that's mudblood I smell on your fingers," she said, taking a delicate sniff.  _

"Grindylow guts from potions class.  Though I hear the two smell quite alike," he said, smiling at her shudder of revulsion. 

"Don't tell me you're still psychoanalyzing her?"  Lamia pursed her lips in disapproval, shaking her head lightly.  "Forget about her mind and aim for her panties, Malfoy."

"Knickers, you mean.  And you really don't know a thing about subtlety, do you?"

Lamia looked amused.  "You'd be surprised," she said, fluttering her eyelashes.  

"Not to mention I've got _two _birds to worry about now, thanks to your ill-timed bet."  He had yet to make a move on Ginny Weasley, and in fact had no idea to proceed with such a task—not that he'd ever admit this to Lamia. 

"Two!"  Lamia exclaimed, tugging playfully at the cuff of his robes.  "I thought Malfoys were used to carrying on with five or more women at a time?" 

"Sometimes," he admitted, thinking of Lamia's mother, the Ministry receptionist who was now stuck somewhere in the Siberian salt mines.  For the first time, Draco thought it rather curious that Lamia was so interested in her biological father, Lucius, but had never once in his company said a word about her biological mother.  Not that Draco even knew the woman's name, but perhaps that was because of the fact the Narcissa had cursed it so that if anyone said her name aloud in the Malfoy house, that person would go mute for two to three hours afterwards.  

"Well."  Lamia drew upright, suddenly quite severe.  "You ought to hustle then.  You've only got until Christmas, remember?  

Draco tried to look nonchalant.  "That's plenty of time." 

Lamia let out a tinkling little laugh.  "I might as well start packing my summer trunk for England now," she said, then turned on her heel and walked away, her plaited hair swinging from side to side.

For the sake of avoiding further mockery at his half-sister's hands, Draco decided he had better do _something about Ginny Weasley.  Hermione had been so easy…but he was expecting Ginny to be more of a challenge, in part because he knew so very little about her aside from the fact she'd had a massive crush on Harry Potter during her first year.  If she had actually associated with Harry a bit more Draco might have had more of a chance to observe her. That's how he had come to learn a thing or two about Granger, after all; she'd always been hovering around in the background whenever Draco took a shine to making Potter's life miserable.  As such, the most contact he'd had with Ginny Weasley was…on the Quidditch field. _

That was how he came to find himself striding across the Quidditch pitch just after dawn the next day, swathed in a heavy warm-ups and a Slytherin hooded parka.  According to Lamia, Ginny was an avid morning person who spent the hours before breakfast running sprints and doing stretches.  Draco, however, was _not _a morning person, and he coughed and snuffled and fussed over his hair as he walked across the dewy grass, wishing desperately for a fresh shot of espresso.  The pitch was located on the far end of the island, and Draco could hear waves splashing up on the beach, gulls reeling and screeching in the sky overhead.  

For a Quidditch player, 'running sprints' meant mounting one's broom and zooming back and forth from one end of the pitch to the other, practicing speed and control.  That's why Draco was surprised to discover that Ginny was doing _actual sprints, running on foot across the length of lawn at top speed, her red hair streaming out behind her.  Draco lowered his Nimbus broomstick to the ground and watched her with growing uncertainty.  Though she was already a good chaser, it appeared that Ginny was bent on further conditioning her athletic performance; the Weasleys had always been annoyingly fit without much effort, and Ginny was no different.  The extra bulk she carried beneath her robes—which Draco had always assumed to be baby fat—was revealed as well-muscled contours once clearly outline beneath the thin fabric of her tee-shirt.  She was tall and had an amazingly long stride; Draco knew that if he started running at her side, she would out-pace him by half.  _

She seemed not to notice him as she ran, and it wasn't until she stopped and lowered herself to the ground, stretching out her legs, that he dared approach her.  He pulled out a cigarette from his pocket and lit it, puffing slowly as he began to jog in a circle around the pitch, taking care to pass near her as she did so.  

When he finally passed near her, she was doing a fierce round of sit-ups, making small grunts as she see-sawed her body up and into her bent knees, then slammed it down into the grass again, back and forth as if she were hooked up to a motor.  She didn't pause at his approach, though her eyes did roll up to look at him, her brow wrinkled in mild disdain. 

"Hey," he said, flicking his cigarette onto the grass beside her, where it continued to smolder until he stubbed it out with the toe of his trainer.  

She flopped up and rested against her knees, panting heavily.  "Smoking on the pitch?" she asked, incredulous.  "That's a fine way to get into shape, Malfoy." 

He yawned against the back of his hand.  "I'm already in shape," he said, shrugging.  "But I could spot you a few quaffles if you wanted to mount your broom and get some actual chasing practice in."

"No, thank you."  It seemed as if she were struggling to appear polite, a tight smile of suspicion pasted across her face.  Draco fought the urge to roll eyes; had he known that proudly displaying his arrogance would work against him in the future, he might have been a little more polite back in his formative years.

"Suit yourself," he said, un-zipping his parka and letting it drop to the grass before doing a couple of side-to-side stretches of his own.  She looked a bit disappointed that he clearly had no intention of leaving, but at least made effort to suppress her displeasure, pulling her eyes away and launching into another vigorous round of sit-ups.  Draco found her willingness to maintain civility refreshing; it was good to know that Ron Weasley's hatred of him hadn't swayed Ginny in the way it had so many others, including Harry Potter and most of the other Gryffindors in his year, who all tended to avoid contact with Draco at all costs.  Though the animosity between Lucius and Mr. Weasley probably meant that Draco himself wasn't high up on Ginny's list of favorite people, she was apparently smart enough to realize that father and son were two distinct, separate individuals with very different motives in life.  

He conveniently forgot for a moment that his own motives weren't exactly kind and chivalrous.    

Draco had started in on some brisk toe-touches, uncertain how to next proceed, when he was struck with a sudden idea; it would cost him a few ounces of his dignity, perhaps, but was virtually guaranteed to capture the Weasley girl's attention, for however brief a moment.  Shooting his arms high up in the air, he yowled in pain and clutched at his shoulder as if experiencing a severe cramp.  "Owww," he moaned, falling to the grass on his knees, still favoring his right arm.  

Ginny halted in mid sit-up.  "Are you all right?" she asked, her voice laced with concern.  

"Bloody trick shoulder," Draco gasped, his face twisted in pain.  "It tends to pop out of joint if I over exert myself."

Ginny sat upright and scooted a bit closer.  "Did it pop out just now?"  She seemed vaguely fascinated, as if a dislocated shoulder was something she was quite keen on checking out.  

"Can't tell," Draco said, still wincing.  "Sometimes it jerks part-way out and hurts so badly that I think I've gone and dislocated it again."

Tentatively, Ginny reached out and placed her hand on the spot where his shoulder was socketed in, feeling it out in an experimental way.  "It feels…" she paused and squeezed a bit harder, eliciting another gasp from him.  "…fairly normal.  You must have just pulled it."  

Draco nodded.  "I'm used to it," he said, drawing upright and putting on a brave face.  He didn't want her to think him a great blubbering baby, after all.  

Ginny cocked her head to one side, a streamer of red hair falling across her cheek almost prettily, and opened her mouth to say something.  But before any words could form, a voice calling from the other end of the pitch, interrupted them.  

"GINNY!  IT'S SEVEN-THIRTY!"

Draco looked in the direction of the voice and was most displeased to see Harry Potter shifting from one foot to the next under the goal posts, early morning sunlight bouncing off his spectacles.  Draco barely stopped himself from growling _What's he __doing here?—remembering just in time that Harry and Ginny were well acquainted, if not good friends._

"Oh!"  Ginny jumped to her feet, brushing loose grass from the back of her thighs.  "Prefects are meeting before breakfast today…I nearly forgot!"  She began to trot off, gathering her hair into a ponytail as she went.  "Bye," she called over her shoulder, not bothering to turn her head and look at him as she did so.  

"Bye then," Draco said, unable to stop his voice from wilting in defeat.  He was so intent in watching her go that he scarcely noticed Harry Potter approaching, his steps wide and resolute, his jaw set as if he had something quite serious to say.  

"Top of the morning to you, Potter," Draco said, a shade too cheerful even to his own ears.  "Got a date with a broomstick?" he added snidely, just for good measure.  

Harry stopped a few feet away from where Draco was crouched, his feet splayed apart, jaw working silently as if he were having difficulty forming proper words.  "You shouldn't be talking with Ginny," he finally said, his brow wrinkling in concern.  

"Why's that?" Draco asked, leisurely coming to his feet.  "You had your shot at her back in second year…bit late to be jealous now, isn't it?"

"I'm not jealous," Harry said quietly, burying his hands deep into the pockets of his robes.  "But whatever it is you're up to, I'm asking you to stop."  He spoke with his head down, staring at the ground rather than meeting Draco's eye.  

Draco widened his eyes in a show of mock innocence.  "What makes you think I'm up to something?"

Harry blinked.  "Since when are you not?  I've seen you speak with Hermione in the hall twice this week, then I find you and Ginny out here…practically _hugging _on the Quidditch pitch."

"Oh, so you saw that, did you?"  Draco was unable to suppress his smile; so what if Harry was on to him?  If driving Potter mad was a consequence of seducing both Ginny and Hermione, all the better.  Draco hadn't had a good crack at Potter since the war broke out, which was a long time considering that since their first year Draco had lived by the philosophy that if he couldn't be as famous as Harry-Bloody-Potter, then he would at least be an infamous thorn in his side.  

"I saw."  Harry dropped his air of civility and glared openly, his eyes finally locking with Draco's.  A dozen of so taunting digs danced along the end of Draco's tongue, all begging to be voiced, but he hesitated, drawing in a breath and holding it as he chose his next words carefully.  

"As much as I'd like to ruin your day, I'm afraid it's not what you think, Potter," he finally said.  "I was doing push-ups and was hit with a shoulder cramp.  The Weasley girl was just making sure I was all right."  

"Oh."  An uneasy relief washed over Harry's face, causing Draco's spirits to sink quite low.  He would have much rather rubbed Potter's nose in a pile of dirty innuendo, but to do so would most certainly jeopardize the outcome of Draco's competition with Lamia.  Whatever happened, Lamia _could not_ be allowed to slink her way into Malfoy Manor.  Draco far preferred being an only child; in practice if not in reality.  

Draco was quite gratified, however, when a rather concerned expression presented itself of Harry's face.  "You're better now, I hope?  Should I fetch Pomfrey?" he asked, his owlish eyes absolutely sopping with sincerity—so much that Draco had to fight not to snicker aloud at Potter's naivety.    

"Eh, I think I'll survive," he managed, making a haggard, _poor me face as he limped off, forgetting for a moment that it was his shoulder—not his leg—that he was supposed to have hurt.  Oh well.  He limped anyway…let Potter wonder._

"Be careful!" Potter called to his retreating back.

Draco shook his head in amazement.  Idiot Gryffindors: so easy to bait; so easy to reel in.  

***

The following weekend Draco found himself on the ferry back to Manhattan; Uncle Theo and Auntie Freesia were apparating to the Poconos for a society auction, which meant that Draco could at last spend a Saturday alone with his mother for once.  Or he could have if Lamia hadn't insisted on coming home as well, shadowing him all the way from one end of the ferry to the other, silent but smiling in a knowing, triumphant sort of way.

"Must you follow me home every weekend?" Draco asked, not bothering to veil the disgust he felt.  "All your friends stay at school, so why can't you?  I imagine that they miss all the latest vicious gossip in your absence."

"Think of me as a painful reminder of your eventual failure," Lamia said, her fine hair blowing about and catching on her eyelashes as she spoke.  

"A painful reminder of the Malfoy's failure, you mean," Draco spat.  "Father never could resist a face as pretty as his own, even if it was attached to someone as lowly as a Ministry receptionist."  

Lamia let out a small sigh and leaned against him, wrapping her cold hand around his.  The ferry was entering the bay and the Manhattan skyline thrust up before them, a brick-and-steel monstrosity that looked to Draco like a gate that opened straight into hell.  

"Let's not fight," she said.  "I want us to enjoy our time together while we can."

Draco glanced down at her.  "You mean the time before I ruin Granger's reputation, shag the she-Weasley and finally get you out of my hair for good?" 

"Hair?" Lamia giggled and reached up to tug at a strand of his own hair, which was wind-tousled and swept wrongways across his forehead.  "Your hair is just like mine, in case you hadn't noticed.  Even if you win—which you won't—you'll never be quite free of me, will you?"  

Draco clicked his tongue against his teeth in irritation.  "That remains to be seen," he said, though he allowed her to clutch his hand, enjoying the contact for reasons he didn't quite understand.  He mostly despised her, true, but now that she was in his life he was having a hard time imagining his life before.  It almost frightened him, her ability to seep in through the cracks, to take up private residence in his heart, growing like a black cancer that he wanted to be rid of but couldn't quite manage to properly cure into oblivion.  

"There are a few other students wandering around on this ferry, you realize," he said quietly, keeping his eyes to the water.  "They may find it odd that you're holding your so-called cousin's hand."

She dropped his hand and moved away from him slightly, still looking up at him with that sly smile that she reserved solely for him—for everyone else it was a sunny smile of carefree innocence; a trustworthy prefect's smile.  She stepped up on the base of the railing that surrounding the ferry, which put her at nearly an inch taller than him.  She spread her arms wide and anchored them on the railing itself, her posture defiant.  "You're Draco-Fucking-Malfoy," she said, her voice a low trill.  "Why do you care what other's think?"

"I don't."  Draco stared at her.  She had changed into muggle clothing before leaving the school and was now outfitted in a thin dress of that icy-blue hue that she seemed to favor; it brought out the blue flecks in her gray eyes, highlighting the fine blue veins that ran down the slope of her neck.  _Blueblood…it was a muggle word that Draco had heard before but was perhaps only beginning to fully understand.  On the pedestal of the ferry railing she resembled nothing short of a figure carved in alabaster—cold and unyielding, challenging those beneath her to drop down in worship.  To his own horror, Draco felt his own knees nearly cave.  _

"Prove it," she hissed, the final syllable issued in a clear note of challenge.  

Draco thrust forward and firmly pressed his lips to her own, his gloved hands coming down on either side of her face and raking through her hair, the fine strands tangling around his fingers.  She made a humming noise of pleasure in her throat and he parted his mouth slightly, allowing his tongue to trace the edge of her bottom lip ever-so-slightly as he pulled her closer to him, dimly surprised at how warm she felt against him.  Just as he opened his eyes and began to fall back into his senses, he felt her hands move away from his hips—where she'd only just before been clutching him—and plant themselves against his chest, pushing him away with surprising force.  

"Don't!" she cried, her voice a high-pitched yelp of fear.  "Don't Draco…we're cousins!  Please stop it…please!"  She backed away from him, her hands visibly shaking and held out before her body as if to ward him away.  

"What the…?" Draco watched her fall to her knees and begin to sob, utterly dumbfounded until he realized that a small crowd of Hogwart's students had hurriedly gathered nearby at the sound of her cries, and were now staring and exchanging whispers.  No…not staring—_glaring.  _A sixth year prefect that Draco didn't know came forward and helped Lamia to her feet, patting her on the shoulder and murmuring soothing words that he couldn't quite hear.  

"I keep telling him that I only love him as a cousin, but he just doesn't understand…"

Lamia's parting words were just barely audible as the small crowd drew her into their collective embrace, buzzing furiously and occasionally glancing his way, deep suspicion present on each angry face.  

Draco sighed in disgust, wrapping his coat tightly around his body despite the fact that he wasn't a bit cold.  Even he had to admit that—this time around—it was he who had been easily baited and hooked.

###########

A/N:  

I would like to dedicate this chapter to HermioneSue: she is always spreading the word about this story...so thanks a million, kitkat! 

Some of you have noticed the 'Cruel Intentions' parallels, which is bound to happen since I'm basing this on the novel that 'Cruel Intentions' is adapted from; however, I'd like to assure you that things in this story won't end up quite the same way they do in the movie.  So please keep reading even if you *think* you know what's going to happen. ;)    

Like the dubious Lamia, I have many surprises up my sleeve!

See my livejournal for updates:  


	4. Chapter Four: Between a Snake and a Hard...

**Les Liaisons Serpentines**

**By The Tonio**

**Chapter Four: _Between a Snake and a Hard Place _**

It was a rare moment of absolute quiet within Freesia and Theo Plotte's penthouse; a breeze came in off Central Park and into Draco's open bedroom window, ruffling his hair as he slouched against the elaborately carved fireplace mantle. Freesia and Theo were still in the Poconos, his mother was in her own rooms—napping, presumably—and Lamia had disappeared from the penthouse just after breakfast, not bothering to inform anyone of her intended whereabouts as she left. Draco should have been pleased and relaxed, having the run of the apartment all to himself, but his anxiety had been mounting throughout the course of the morning and nothing—not croquet in the courtyard, not a strong cup of spiked tea—seemed to be helping. He hated croquet, anyway.

"Oh…so it's you who's been calling on my hearth for the last twenty minutes. Somehow I'm not surprised."

Draco bolted upright, then cursed softly and pulled a chair up to the fireplace, sitting down with an inelegant plop. Marty's face was looking out expectantly from the flames, but before answering Draco took a few seconds to openly glare at the man for abandoning him in his time of greatest need.

"I went to your office after breakfast and the door was_ locked against me_," Draco seethed. "And I signaled your fire at least twenty minutes ago. Where have you been?"

"I'm sorry Draco, but our appointments are on Tuesdays. I have other patients to see, you know." Marty smiled apologetically, which somehow sent Draco's rage into a full-out boil.

"I HAD AN EMERGENCY!" he bellowed. "A REAL ONE THIS TIME!"

Marty clapped his hands over his ears and looked taken aback. "I can see that you're quite worked up," he said, his tone still maddeningly even. "Very well, now that I'm here why not tell me what all this is about, hmm?"

Draco screwed his eyes up tight and balled his hands into fists before bursting out: "It's Lamia! _She's ruining my life!_"

"What's she done this time?"

It might have been his imagination, but Draco thought he saw Marty roll his eyes. He _better_ have imagined it, otherwise Marty could expect a scolding and severe pay cut from Lucius.

"She…" Draco paused, wondering how to evoke the severity of the situation without making himself look at least partly at fault. "She lured me into a… delicate position on the ferry ride yesterday afternoon, and at least ten of our fellow classmates saw the entire spectacle."

Marty frowned. "What do you mean by _delicate position_?"

Draco lowered his eyes and felt himself flush despite his efforts to fight it. "She tricked me into kissing her."

"I see." Marty was quiet for a few seconds, appearing to mull this over. "And how does one person _trick _another person into a kiss?" he finally asked, raising his left eyebrow just slightly.

"If that one person is Lamia, anything is possible," Draco insisted, neatly side-stepping the actual question.

"So your sister isn't really doing anything that she doesn't normally do, is she then," Marty said, phrasing the words as a statement.

"Not particularly. But now she's pulling her usual tricks out in public, and I can't have that," Draco confessed, hoping the biting tone of his voice disguised his actual distress. He wrung his gloved hands together worriedly, relieved that Marty could see nothing but his face.

"Perhaps it would be best to ignore her? We've already discussed the dangers of giving her the attention that she seeks."

Draco bit his lip. If Marty only knew…he'd sort of _enjoyed _kissing her. She was his version of female perfection, physically speaking, and her emotional and mental faults…well, they reminded him of his own, a fact which only made her more endearing. No one had faults quite so appealing as his, after all. Yet she was so much like him that Draco knew she could never, ever be trusted.

"Ignoring her is easy," Draco said loftily. "I do it all the time. But it will be difficult to ignore the whole school once word of this gets around."

"It might be simpler than you think. If you make it clear that you don't care about rumors, then the rumors are no longer very interesting for others to spread," Marty said soothingly, and for once Draco was grateful for that phony, friendly guise that the doctor so easily slipped into.

"That's true…" Draco said slowly, wondering if it really was. How could he tell Marty what his _real _fear was: that his wall of resistance against Lamia was crumbling, bit by incestuous bit? He needed vaccination against her, lest he actually be welcoming her presence at Malfoy Manor this summer. He took it as a good sign that the thought of sharing his family home with her still caused him to experience nausea. He kept reminding himself that she _wasn't_ a real Malfoy. She was just a bastard child, useless and unwanted to both himself and his parents. Her seduction had nothing to do with true desire for him because her only real desire was to see him fail and flounder, of this he was certain.

"I need help wooing a girl," Draco announced, feeling a change of subject was in order.

"Oh?" Marty appeared surprised. "Have you developed feelings for someone?"

"Of course not. I have to ruin the Head Girl's reputation and sleep with Ginny Weasley, 6th year prefect—possibly a latent lesbian, but that remains to be seen. I'm personally holding out hope that she's just a shy, blushing virgin."

"I see," Marty said, looking as if he did not see at all.

"I've practically mounted the Head Girl," Draco said confidently. "But that Ginny will be a bit trickier."

"Because of her alleged same-sex orientation?" Marty suggested, a tiny smirk inching across his features.

"No! Because she's…" Draco sighed, feeling some of his haughtiness drain away as he finished in a whisper, "…she's a _good girl_."

Marty closed his eyes, as if hoping for a brief reprieve from Draco's presence. "Good how?"

Draco looked frantically around his room, as if hoping that the Plotte ancestors, bustling behind their gilt-edged frames, would somehow help him to keep calm throughout this conversation. "She's _polite_ to people," he admitted. "Even when she doesn't like them, she's civil…even, ugh, kind. She's smart but not a big-mouthed know-it-all, like Granger. She makes people _laugh_. She's a good Quidditch player, but not good enough to make _me _look bad, thankfully. She's got the unfortunate Weasley red hair, but I have to admit it's much easier to stomach when it grows atop a female head."

Marty cocked his head to one side. "Sounds as if you're attracted to her."

"Don't be ridiculous, Marty," Draco said, letting out a stiff laugh. "She's a Weasley—an embarrassment to purebloods everywhere. The point is that she's not quite like any other girls I know, and for that reason I find it difficult to proceed with the seduction as planned."

"A good girl, then? Is she _ever_ bad?"

Draco thought hard. "No," he finally said. "Pure as the driven snow."

"Hmm." For once, Marty looked as if he were seriously searching out proper words of advice. "I suggest you watch a few American movies this weekend. If there's one thing that remains true throughout human history, it's this: good girls love bad boys."

"They do?" Draco was genuinely surprised. Then again, he'd only ever dated bad girls. Well, Slytherin girls, anyway, who tended to be unscrupulous if not exactly _bad_, right down to their sharply filed nails and temporarily-enchanted green eyes.

Marty smiled benignly. "What I'm telling you, in a nutshell, is to be yourself, Draco. That usually works best in all cases."

Before Draco could reply the door to his bedroom squeaked open; he turned in alarm, certain that Lamia would be standing there, armed with her usual smirk. It was only Marta the housekeeper, though, plodding in on her sensible shoes, her face hard and unreadable beneath a cloud of teased hair.

"Master Malfoy," she murmured, her head lowered just slightly. Draco noticed that she did not bow, however, and felt his rage threaten to return; even the most disobedient of house-elves had never failed to bow for him.

"What do you want?" Draco snarled, waving his wand dismissively at the fire. Marty's face immediately disappeared with a faint crackling sound.

"There is a guest," Marta said in her halting English, gesturing towards the door.

"So? Tell my mother." Draco pretended to brush lint from the front of his impeccably pressed button-down shirt.

"The guest is for you? She is wearing the Hogwarts' dress."

"Oh?" Draco rose to his feet, his curiosity finally piqued. It was most likely a friend of Lamia's, he reasoned; he best send her on her way before Lamia returned and stuffed her full of filthy gossip.

But there was a surprise waiting for him when he finally arrived in the grand foyer, with its dripping chandeliers and stiff, plush-velvet Louis XIV furniture. There, standing on tip-toe to cautiously sniff a giant spray of tropical flowers, was Hermione Granger. And she was alone.

--XXX--

Draco and Hermione were walking leisurely through Central Park, the Indian Summer sunlight warming their shoulders pleasantly—or Hermione was walking leisurely, anyway. Draco was still wound up and his jittery pace reflected the state of his nerves; he had to keep forcing himself to fall back to her side. Hermione was blissfully ignorant of his condition, smiling and licking a drippy ice-cream cone.

She'd come out on the ferry with Ron to spend the day in Little Diagon, but they had been separated in a crowd of marathon runners while exploring Central Park. And so Hermione had found herself alone in the city with nothing but her wand and a pocketful of sickles (plus ten American dollars, as she never went anywhere without pin money). She had wandered around looking for Ron at first, crumbling up her breakfast bagel and throwing it out for the ducks, then finally caught site of the famous Dakota apartment building peeking out over a break in the thick autumnal foliage.

"I once overhead your cousin saying that you both lived in a penthouse at the top of the Dakota," Hermione had explained. "So I just kept walking towards them until I reached the front doors. I didn't know where else to go." She chirped on brightly, giving Draco a headache. "I saw John Lennon in the lobby. I would have asked for an autograph but I'm not sure how low a profile he's keeping these days."

"Pretty low," Draco said sulkily. He'd been _dying_ for a glimpse of John Lennon and Hermione had seen him by accident. It wasn't fair.

"It's too bad he had to leave his muggle music career behind. Ron really loves--

"Right," Draco said, cutting her off. "Now to find the bloody red nit-wit" He shuffled through a pile of leaves and sending them flying.

"That eager to be rid of me, are you?" Hermione tossed the remains of the cone into a rubbish bin and wiped her hands off on her jumper.

"No, it's just…" Draco swung his eyes from left to right. There were muggles _everywhere_, pushing baby carriages, careening about on those strange boots called rollerblades, some of them selling hot-dogs behind vending carts, others benched and dressed in filthy tatters, their hands out-stretched for charity. "…I hate New York in the autumn," he finished lamely, stuffing his hands deep into his pockets.

"Why?" Hermione cried, tilting her face skyward. "It's a beautiful day! Being here almost makes me forget how much I miss home."

"_You_ miss home! Imagine how it is for me--I don't even have both of my parents here."

She frowned slightly; he already knew that her own parents were outfitted comfortably in Brooklyn Heights, practicing dentistry until it was once again safe for the parents of a mudblood witch to go back to living in Mother England. "Sorry…" she murmured, though her face looked only barely contrite. Not that he was surprised—his father was a Death Eater and she was no doubt completely aware of this fact.

"Anyway, there it is," Draco pointed. "Belvedere Castle, the entryway to Little Diagon."

Over the crest of the hill a small castle--designed to look more like a fortress--sat regally, an American flag waving from the crest of its highest tower.

"Wow!" Hermione's face lit up. "It's hard to believe that the muggles think this is nothing more than a nature observatory. It was built in 1865 by descendants of the original Salem Witches, you know…I read about it in _Salem: A Historical Aftermath_."

"Of course I know that. Haven't you ever been here before?"

"No. The move to the states was such a hassle that I ordered all my school things through owl post," she exclaimed, her eyes still wandering over the turreted walls of the castle's exterior. "It doesn't really look like a _real _castle now that I look at it closely."

Draco snorted. "Wait until you see Little Diagon. The American notion of replication means taking an original and making it snazzier, gaudier, and mixing in just a hint of sleaze."

To his surprise, Hermione laughed at this. "Show me," she urged, pulling at his gloved hand.

He led her around to the rear of the castle and through a thin stand of trees. Back here there was a small, stained-glass window set into the stone exterior, the design of which featured an elaborate letter "B". Draco took out his wand and traced the letter, finally tapping the window three times in the center. There was a _wooshing_ noise that caused Hermione to jump back, and then the window widened dramatically, transforming into a heavy wooden door.

"Come on," Draco said, pushing through it.

Inside was a bustle of noise and confusion. Little Diagon looked almost exactly like the tightly packed streets of London's Diagon Alley, filled with shops that sold spellbooks and owls and Quidditch supplies aplenty. It was only after staring for several minutes that the notable differences began to appear. Almost all the witches and wizards—save the actual shop proprietors—were dressed in common muggle clothing. The crowd was also much larger, and the streets therefore wider to accommodate everyone. In addition to the original shops of Diagon Alley, there were a large number of pubs and eateries, plus souvenir and novelty shops. Even as Draco and Hermione looked on, a red-faced teenager stumbled past with a colorful, tropical drink in hand—a 'wicked cauldron', no doubt—dressed in a _I Heart Little Diagon!_ tee-shirt. Somewhere in the distance a raucous street band was playing the bongos.

"Whoa." Hermione stared, unblinking. "Just…wow."

"See what I mean," Draco said loftily. Noticing her hand was still wrapped around his own, he pulled loose gently, unable to stop himself from smirking when she looked rather hurt by this. "We're here to find your boyfriend," he reminded.

"Right." Her eyes began to scan the crowd. "But what if he's not here?"

"Then my theory that he is an idiot will be confirmed," Draco said, moving forward to part the crowd.

"Oh look!" Hermione breathed, pulling on his shirt-tail. Draco pivoted about, guessing that she might have spotted Weasley. Instead, she was staring wide-eyed at a book shop, her mouth dropped open in rapture. "_Pages and Papyrus_! It's supposed to be the biggest book shop in the wizarding world!"

"So?" Draco said, attempting to push forward and drag her along at the same time. She was digging her heels in fast.

"Can we please go in? Just for a minute? For all we know Ron could be in there!" she pleaded, trying to wade away in the other direction.

"Doing what? _Reading_? Not bloody likely," Draco muttered. A glimpse at her eager brown eyes made him relent, though. It occurred to him that he and Hermione could potentially spend the entire afternoon together without the ever-watchful eyes of their classmates upon them. Perhaps he could use this time to his advantage, after all.

The interior of _Pages and Papyrus_ was primarily occupied by badly dressed witches, most of them wearing horrific gauzy peasant blouses and mini-backpacks. There was a strong smell of cedar incense and low, piped in music—tacky, instrumental versions of the Celestina Warbeck's greatest hits. The space itself was pleasant, high-ceiled and lofty.

Hermione made a beeline straight for the Advanced Transfiguration collection, all other thoughts forgotten, while Draco followed in a meandering way, stopping to peer through a glass case at an impressively large compilation of Restricted books. When he finally caught up to Hermione, she was standing several rungs up on a wheeled ladder, studying one of the top most shelves. He couldn't see anything aside from her legs, and when he leaned in close enough could see quite a ways up her skirt—nearly to London and France.

He sighed to himself, somewhat forlornly. Oh, they were nice enough stems, he supposed, sturdy and a bit thick at the knees, but otherwise nice. But he couldn't help wondering what Ginny's legs looked like…they were definitely long, maybe freckled and rosy, like the surface of smooth river stone. And Lamia's…no doubt blindingly ice-white and perfectly curved.

He reached out and brushed his thumb against the back of Hermione's knee, imagining it was Lami. . .Ginny's. He applied more pressure and felt a shudder of surprise pass through her, strong enough to shift the ladder with an audible _thump_.

"Sooner or later we seem to find ourselves surrounded by books, you and I." he said, his voice low and barbed with meaning.

She made a swallowing noise and slowly descended from the ladder. When she turned to face him he expected her to be angry or annoyed. . .at best, very slightly amused. But her face was pale and struggling with something, caught halfway between desire and disgust.

"Don't do that," she said.

"Do what?"

"Touch me." But her voice hitched in the middle and it almost came out as a request.

He leaned in, directing his words at her ear. "Like that?" he asked, grazing his lips just slightly against her jawline, feeling a warm strand of her hair briefly catch in them.

Then he pulled away abruptly. "Because I have no intentions of touching you like that," he added, his voice tart. "There was a silverfish clinging to your leg. Squashed it for you."

He swished about and began to walk towards the exit, certain that she would follow. Sure enough, once he found himself out in the sun he could see Hermione's slight shadow pull up behind him, miniature to his own.

"The shop wasn't that spectacular," she said, looking embarrassed. "I've seen better."

"Yeah right," he scoffed, poking her in the shoulder. "What you mean is that you've seen better and that it goes by my name."

Her face was pained with exasperation. "There really is no end to your arrogance, is there?"

"Do you really want to find out?"

"No," she said hurriedly.

"Good. Now let me treat you to a snack at one of the cafés. We can sit outside and keep look-out for that hapless boyfriend of yours."

"No need," Hermione said in a pointed way. Draco eyed her quizzically, but her own eyes were elsewhere, glazed over in something verging on anger. Following the path of her gaze, Draco saw at once what she was staring at. Directly across from _Pages and Papyrus _was a ramshackle replication of Foretescue's Ice Cream Shoppe, run by Florean's cousin Fabio, and sitting outside under a striped umbrella were Ron Weasley and Lamia, both laughing and dipping long spoons into a giant toffee sundae. While Draco watched, open-mouthed, Lamia laughed merrily and used her napkin to daub a bit of ice cream from Weasley's chin.

Draco had to hand it to Hermione. While he himself was struck speechless, she placed her hands on her hips and marched right over to their table. "Fancy seeing you here, Ron," she announced, snatching the spoon right out of his hand. "I see you've worked up quite the appetite while searching the city for me." Ron did nothing but stare up at her dumbly, while Lamia sighed in annoyance, narrowing her eyes in Draco's general direction.

"Leave me be, Draco!" she cried out suddenly, tears welling up as if they'd been turned on by a switch. "What must I do to get you to stop following me?"

Ron managed to ignore Hermione's questioning glare and, like Lamia, turned on Draco, his face twisted in disgust. "Yeah, Malfoy. Lamia told me all about your sick desires. Snogging your own cousin…is that how real purebloods do it?"

"Interested in the ways of real purebloods, Weasel? It's a bit too late for that," Draco said, forcing himself to remain calm as he took long steps to the shady spot where the three were gathered.

"Sick desires?" Hermione asked, lowering the spoon to the table. "What are you on about?"

Ron's eye's narrowed. "Ask him," he said, gestured to Draco. Hermione only looked at him, her eyes questioning.

"Me? I have no idea what he's on about, as usual," Draco said, picking up the spoon and helping himself to a heaping spoonful of the frozen confection. The toffee sauce and chocolate ice cream was so sweet that it burned at his mouth almost painfully.

"Ooh!" Lamia wailed, burying her face in her upturned hands. "It's so humiliating! I just can't bear it!"

Hermione, to her credit, reacted to Lamia's histrionics with suspicion rather than sympathy. "What's humiliating?" she demanded. "And Ron, what made you decide to spend the day blithely slurping on ice cream instead of trying to meet up with me as we planned?"

Ron opened his mouth to fritter out some excuse, but not before Draco spoke up: "You slurped on ice cream as well, Hermione. I bought you a cone in Central Park, if you recall."

Hermione turned her head so fast that her hair whipped Draco in the face. "I'm talking to Ron. _Not_ you."

"Oh, I think I should go. This is just all too much for me," Lamia gasped, clutching at her throat and rising from her seat. Once on her feet she swooned unsteadily and Ron shot forth to pull her upright.

"Easy there," he murmured, swabbing at her forehead with his sticky napkin.

"What _is _her problem?" Hermione snapped, clearly not appreciating Ron's Gryffindor sense of chivalry.

"Malfoy's after her night and day," Ron explained. "Can't keep his greasy mitts off his own cousin. Everyone's saying that he practically molested her on the ferry yesterday afternoon—I'm surprised you haven't heard already."

Draco rubbed at his throbbing temple. This did not bode well. Lamia claimed to want Hermione ruined, but just the same she apparently couldn't resist making Draco's task all the more embarrassing and difficult.

"Molested? What?" Hermione looked positively incredulous.

"It's all my fault," Lamia sobbed, giving her plaits a distressed tug. "I shouldn't have come home on the ferry with him…I should have known that being near me was just too much temptation."

"There, there." Ron continued to rub her back in attentive little circles.

"Too much _temptation_? Oh for heaven's sake. . ."

Much to Draco's delight and glee, it seemed that Hermione was fighting the urge to slam Lamia's face down into the gooey depths of the sundae.

"The Malfoy _I _know," she continued haughtily, "is beyond temptation. Temptation would require that he possess feelings, after all. And we all know that he is well above those." She pummeled him with a fast, final glare before finishing.

Draco felt oddly betrayed, though he knew Hermione more or less spoke the truth. Feelings were messy, unsettling things, as his further entanglement into the sticky web of Lamia was beginning to prove. He was most definitely better off without them.

"Indulge in your fantasies as you like, Lamia," he remarked, giving her a little salute. "I'm afraid I've got better things to do than to… what was it?" He mocked thinking hard. "Ah, yes… follow you around with my greasy mitts." He stood up and tossed down his spoon.

"Please…" a voice came from behind them, halting and weirdly accented. It was Fabio Fortescue, who was a huge, rock-hewn man with bulging biceps. He had an ice cream cone in either hand, and a bewildered look on his handsome face. "Your ruckus is disturbing my costumers. Please be keeping it down, yes?

"It's no trouble," Hermione said crisply, also rising to her feet. "We were just leaving. Right, Ron?"

"With _him_?" Ron boggled at Draco, then glanced forlornly at his sundae. "But I'm kind of busy."

"Fine!" Hermione shrilled, her voice like a pin. "But my parents are expecting us for brunch in the morning. I'd appreciate it if you'd…" she paused, her voice brimming with tears. "Not be late!" And with that she whirled around and took off stomping in the opposite direction.

Draco followed her at a leisurely pace, in no hurry to catch up with her and see her (ew) crying. He only caught up when she finally halted at the Little Diagon's exit and leaned against a wall, breathing heavily.

"I… hate… your…cousin!" she spat, her fists balled at her sides.

"Join the club, Granger. But we don't have any badges yet, I'm afraid." He leaned against the wall next to her, crossing his ankles easily.

"Do you know," she started, her voice dropping in a conspiratorial way, "that she tried to seduce Viktor Krum when he was here for the World Cup Quidditch Exhibition?"

"Oh, really?" Draco kept his tone to a casual, cool level of disinterest.

"Yes! Viktor explained he was interested in someone else, of course," she said hurriedly. "And she still slipped him a key to her room at the Cristal Palace. And Ron _knows _about that, and he's still eating ice cream with her!"

He watched her out of the corner of his eye. She looked hassled and upset, her cheeks growing pinker with each word she spoke. "Oh, come off it, Granger," he said, crossing his arms across his chest. "You tugged Krum along by a leash for years just to make Weasley notice you. But when he does something like eat ice cream with Lamia Plotte, all in effort to make you notice him, the indignant wand comes out."

Her mouth fell open and she gaped at him. "I did not! I care about Viktor. He's a very dear friend to--"

"_Right_." Draco rolled his eyes. "Good grief, Granger. Everyone knows you have nothing in common with that lummox." He held out his arms stiffly and began walking around in a tight little circle, stumbling like Frankenstein's monster. "Her-my-one. Watch-me-fly. I-go-fast. Whee!"

"Stop that," Hermione said icily. But she only glowered, not bothering to critique his impersonation.

"Quit frowning," Draco said, leaning towards her. "You're getting premature worry lines right here." He reached up and fingered the uncreased skin between her eyebrows.

"I asked you to not touch me," she snapped, jerking her head away.

He laughed a little, tipping back on his heels. "All right. I'm going back home for tea. Come along or stay. It's all up to you." He gave her a look over his shoulder. "John might be stopping by." He slipped out the back entrance of Little Diagon Alley then, strongly convinced that she would follow.

--XXX--

They took tea in the arboretum. It was filled with narcissi, per Narcissa's orders, and their sweet fragrance filled the air so completely that Hermione kept sneezing into her white linen napkin.

"Can't you take a _Claritinus_ potion?" Draco asked, frowning as he dropped two sugar lumps into his tea.

"I'm not allergic normally," Hermione sniffled. "There's just so _many_ narcissi!"

Marta came in then, bearing a tray laden with bagels, lox, cream cheese, purple crescents of onion, and salty little capers. "Oh no," Draco groaned. "Where does one have to go in Manhattan to find a decent scone?"

Hermione gave Marta a quick look, sniffling awkwardly into her napkin. When she saw what was on the tray, however, she dropped the linen and smiled. "Bagels! I've not tried a New York bagel yet, but they say they're the best."

"Stale rolls masquerading as donuts," Draco said, pushing the tray in her direction. Marta stood by uncertainly, her eyes staring into nowhere. "Go, Marta," Draco said, waving his hand. He missed having food pop up out of nowhere.

"So," Hermione said, spreading a thick load of cream cheese onto her bagel. "Where's John Lennon?" She looked around the arboretum, as if half-expecting to see John sitting among the narcissi, softly strumming his guitar.

Draco coughed and took a quick drink of tea. "Did I say John Lennon? I was referring to John, my trainer. He likes to monitor my diet, you see."

Hermione slowly lowered her knife, glaring at him over the stack of bagels. "You _knew_ I thought you meant John Lennon, and you let me believe it!"

He shrugged.

Her glare quickly shifted into an expression of perplexed confusion. "Why? I'm a mud--muggleborn. Why would you want me here badly enough to lie?"

The question caught him off guard. He blustered and could feel his cheeks go hot--which no doubt meant he was turning an uncharacteristic shade of red. He tried very quickly to dream up a convincing scenario that wouldn't make him look too devious--but then he remembered Marty's advice. _Just be yourself_, he had said. Well, that couldn't be too hard, could it?

"Because I have something devious planned," he said, reverting back into smooth mode as easily as donning a new pair of gloves.

She stared at him for a moment, then seemed to chuckle to herself, picking up the knife again and daubing at her bagel fussily. "Oh yes, let me see," she mused, spooning up a few capers from the platter. "Devious for anyone else would be your normal, _everyday _behavior--appalling as it is. So devious for _you_ must be…" she glanced up at him, meaning flickering in her eyes. "Simply liking my company and not wanting to admit it?" She blushed a little as she said these last words, turning her eyes back to the bagel and busily arranging the capers.

"Mmm," Draco murmured vaguely, a smile playing at his lips. That Marty was a fucking genius. He'd have to look into getting him a raise. "Want to play a game?"

"Game?" She looked startled. "What game?"

He rose to his feet, finally peeling off his leather gloves and dropping them carelessly on the table linens. "Wait here," he directed, then strode out of the arboretum. He went into the drawing room and found what he was looking for, then came back to the table with a bottle held in his hands.

"Firewhiskey?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. "No, thank you," she said, taking a prim bite of her bagel.

"Oh, come on," he said, swishing the bottle around. "It's spiced rum, and it'll make your tea sweeter than a sundae."

Perhaps it was the word _sundae_ that changed her mind. "Very well," she said, holding out her tea cup. "But only a little."

He poured in a dollop that was generous enough to make her frown, then spiked his own cup. "There now," he said, taking his seat. "This game is called 'I Never', and I invented it myself."

Hermione snorted. "No you didn't! That's a muggle drinking game. People say 'I never did this,' or 'I never did that,' and if you _have_ done 'this' or 'that', then you have to take a drink." She took another bite of her bagel and chewed thoughtfully. "I don't see why people need games in order to imbibe. If they want to imbibe that badly they should just… carry on."

"It's not about imbibing," Draco said, splaying his elbows on the table and leaning into it, his voice unspooling lightly in her direction. "It's about having an excuse to give up control. Because everyone wants to give it up, sooner or later."

She swallowed, very thickly, it seemed. "All right," she said, lifting her cup and staring at its contents. "You go first."

He smiled and said, very pointedly, "I never kissed my cousin." _She's not technically my _cousin_, after all._

Hermione's face went very red, and her cup slowly journeyed in the direction of her mouth. She took a quick gulp, then grimaced and set down her cup hard.

Draco burst out laughing. "What, _you_?"

She squirmed in her seat. "Travis is very fit and we were only twelve, understand."

"Just a kiss?" He arched an eyebrow at her.

"Of course! _Honestly_."

"Right. Of course." He swirled his finger into his tea absently. "That means it's your turn."

"Okay." A devious, almost-scary sort of light came into her eyes, and Draco felt a quick stab of worry. "I've never been transfigured into a ferret," she said, her chin held triumphantly.

In less than an hour they were both thoroughly pissed, and went gamboling into the drawing room while singing "Strawberry Fields Forever" at the top of their lungs. Then they collapsed into a drunken heap on the rug and passed the bottle of rum between them, giggling for no reason at all. Neither of them would remember who passed out first.

Back in the arboretum, Marta was clearing the table when she spotted a pair of crumpled leather gloves on the floor. _Gloves, gloves, everywhere_, she thought morosely_. Another fucking pair of gloves._

--XXX--

Draco awoke to the feeling of fingers against his stomach. They spidered up his chest and tweaked his nipples, playfully at first, then hard enough to cause his eyes to fly open. "Wha?" He slurred. There was a heavy, not-entirely-unpleasant weight on his lower torso, and as his eyes adjusted to the dark he realized it was caused by Hermione, who was straddling his hips and scratching her fingers down his bare chest.

"Uh," he said, not entirely clear what was going on. The room was still spinning a bit. "What are you do--"

She put a hand over his mouth and looked down at him, her eyes blazing even in the dim light. "Shut up," she said, in an odd, clipped voice. "I'm tired of taking orders from you." She removed her hand and replaced it with her mouth, clapping her lips against his so hard that their teeth collided, then finally parted, allowing their tongues to twine together hungrily.

_Well_, Draco thought, his mind reeling. _This is unexpected. _

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I am sorry for my long absence, but here I am again with another update! I do hope that you enjoy it. Please leave me a review, even if only to say hello.

The T.


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